The Times of India issued its first edition on 3 November 1838

 

The Times of India issued its first edition on 3 November 1838 as The Bombay Times and Journal of Commerce

The Times of India (TOI) is an Indian English-language daily newspaper and digital news media owned and managed by The Times Group. According to Audit Bureau of Circulations, it is ranked 9th in the world by circulation and 3rd in India.It is the oldest English-language newspaper in India, and the second-oldest Indian newspaper still in circulation since its first edition published in 1838

22 October -Swami Rama Tirtha

Swami Rama Tirtha (22 October 1873 – 17 October 1906), also known as Ram Soami, was an Indian teacher of the Hindu philosophy of Vedanta. He was among the first notable teachers of Hinduism to lecture in the United States, travelling there in 1902, preceded by Swami Vivekananda in 1893 and followed by Paramahansa Yogananda in 1920. During his American tours Swami Rama Tirtha spoke frequently on the concept of 'practical Vedanta'and education of Indian youth.He proposed bringing young Indians to American universities and helped establish scholarships for Indian students.

22 October - Bhakra-Nangal Dam commemorative stamp released in 1963

Bhakra Dam is a concrete gravity dam on the Sutlej River in Bilaspur, Himachal Pradesh in northern India. The dam forms the Gobind Sagar reservoir.

The dam, located at a gorge near the (now submerged) upstream Bhakra village in Bilaspur district of Himachal Pradesh of height 226 m.The length of the dam (measured from the road above it) is 518.25 m and the width is 9.1 m. Its reservoir known as "Gobind Sagar" stores up to 9.34 billion cubic metres of water. The 90 km long reservoir created by the Bhakra Dam is spread over an area of 168.35 km2. In terms of quantity of water, it is the third largest reservoir in India, the first being Indira Sagar dam in Madhya Pradesh with capacity of 12.22 billion cu m and second Nagarjunasagar Dam.

Described as "New Temple of Resurgent India" by Jawaharlal Nehru,the first prime minister of India, the dam attracts tourists from all over India. Bhakra dam is 15 km from Nangal city and 20 km from Naina Devi town.

Nangal Dam is another dam in Punjab downstream of Bhakra Dam. However, sometimes both the dams together are called Bhakra-Nangal Dam though they are two separate dams.

• India Post on 22 October 2013 released a commemorative postage stamp on the Golden Jubilee of Bhakra Dam
• India Post earlier issued a commemorative postage stamp on Bhakra Dam on 15th Dec 1988 on its silver jubilee.
• India Post has also issued a Definitive stamp on Bhakra Dam on 15 March 1967

Fired by passion and enthusiasm to build new India, all engineers and technicians put in un-tiring efforts day & night for almost a decade to build Bhakra Dam – The Nation’s Pride. Pt. Nehru dedicated the dam to the nation on 22nd October 1963.

Info from wiki and https://bbmb.gov.in/bhakra-project.htm website

20 October - International Sloth Day

 

International Sloth Day is an annual commemoration celebrated on October 20th of every year. Sounds weird as this Day is for the sloth? Don’t get panic, as this Day is not for the laziness or indolence. The sloth here refers to a mammal that is originally a leaf-eaters. Every living being needs recognization and sloth is one among those living creature. The animal is named so as it seems to be slow and lazy at first glance. They are not so, and we could see it with a smiling face. International Sloth Day celebrates the sloths, an extinct mammal. It is the also the Day that raises awareness about the natural habitat and life cycle of the Sloth.

19 October - Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar born in 1910

 

Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (19 October 1910 – 21 August 1995) was an Indian-American astrophysicist who spent his professional life in the United States. He was awarded the 1983 Nobel Prize for Physics with William A. Fowler for "...theoretical studies of the physical processes of importance to the structure and evolution of the stars and black holes.The Chandrasekhar limit is named after him.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subrahmanyan_Chandrasekhar

18 October - United States takes possession of Alaska in 1867

The Alaska Purchase was the United States' acquisition of Alaska from the Russian Empire. Alaska was formally transferred to the United States on October 18, 1867, through a treaty ratified by the United States Senate and signed by President Andrew Johnson.

Russia had established a presence in North America during the first half of the eighteenth century, but few Russians ever settled in Alaska. In the aftermath of the Crimean War, Emperor Alexander II of Russia began exploring the possibility of selling Alaska, which would be difficult to defend in any future war from being conquered by its main arch-rival, the United Kingdom. Following the end of the American Civil War, U.S. Secretary of State William Seward entered into negotiations with Russian minister Eduard de Stoeckl for the purchase of Alaska. Seward and Stoeckl agreed to a treaty on March 30, 1867, and the treaty was ratified by the United States Senate by a wide margin despite clashes between President Andrew Johnson and Congress over Reconstruction.

The purchase added 586,412 square miles (1,518,800 km2) of new territory to the United States for the cost of $7.2 million (2 cents per acre). In modern terms, the cost was equivalent to $132 million in 2019 dollars or $0.37 per acre.Reactions to the purchase in the United States were mostly positive, as many believed possession of Alaska would serve as a base to expand American trade in Asia. Some opponents labeled the purchase as "Seward's Folly", or "Seward's Icebox",as they contended that the United States had acquired useless land. Nearly all Russian settlers left Alaska in the aftermath of the purchase; Alaska would remain sparsely populated until the Klondike Gold Rush began in 1896. Originally organized as the Department of Alaska, the area was renamed the District of Alaska and the Alaska Territory before becoming the modern State of Alaska in 1959.

18 October - The United States takes possession of Puerto Rico from Spain in 1898

 

The history of Puerto Rico began with the settlement of the archipelago of Puerto Rico by the Ortoiroid people between 3,000 and 2,000 BC. Other tribes, such as the Saladoid and Arawak Native Puerto Ricans, populated the island between 430 BC and 1000 AD. At the time of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World in 1493, the dominant indigenous culture was that of the Taínos. The Taíno people's numbers went dangerously low during the later half of the 16th century because of new infectious diseases carried by Europeans, exploitation by Spanish settlers, and warfare.

In 1898, during the Spanish–American War, Puerto Rico was invaded and subsequently became a possession of the United States. The first years of the 20th century were marked by the struggle to obtain greater democratic rights from the United States.

The Foraker Act of 1900 established a civil government, ending rule by American generals and the Department of War. A United States Supreme Court ruling Ortega v. Lara, 202 U.S. 339, 342 (1906),involving the Foraker Act and referring to the island as "the acquired country", soon affirmed that the Constitution of the United States applied within its territory and that any domestic Puerto Rican laws which did not conflict with the United State Constitution remained in force.

The Jones Act of 1917, which made Puerto Ricans U.S. citizens, paved the way for the drafting of Puerto Rico's Constitution and its approval by Congress and Puerto Rican voters in 1952. However, the political status of Puerto Rico, a Commonwealth controlled by the United States, remains an anomaly.

The 45-star flag, used by the United States during the invasion of Puerto Rico, was also the official flag of Puerto Rico from 1899 to 1908.

US Flag was hosted over San Juan on October 18, 1898.

15 October - Homage to Shirdi Sai Baba

Sai Baba of Shirdi, also known as Shirdi Sai Baba, was an Indian spiritual master who is regarded by his devotees as a saint and a fakir. He is revered by both his Hindu and Muslim devotees during, as well as after his lifetime.

According to accounts from his life, he preached the importance of realization of the self and criticized love towards perishable things. His teachings concentrate on a moral code of love, forgiveness, helping others, charity, contentment, inner peace and devotion to the God and guru. He stressed the importance of surrender to the true Satguru, who, having trod the path to divine consciousness, will lead the disciple through the jungle of spiritual training.

Sai Baba also condemned distinction based on religion or caste. It remains unclear if he was a Muslim or a Hindu. This, however, was of no consequence to Sai Baba.His teachings combined elements of Hinduism and Islam: he gave the Hindu name Dwarakamayi to the mosque in which he lived,practised both Hindu and Muslim rituals, taught using words and figures that drew from both traditions and took samadhi in Shirdi. One of his well-known epigrams, Allah Malik (God is King) and Sabka Malik Ek (Everyone's Master is One) (Special Cover on the epigrams) , is associated with both Hinduism and Islam. He is also known to have said Look to me, and I shall look to you and Allah tera bhala karega. He was said to be an incarnation of Dattatreya.

In August 1918, Shirdi Sai Baba told some of his devotees that he would soon be "leaving his mortal body" (dying).Towards the end of September, he had high fever and stopped eating.As his condition deteriorated, he asked his disciples to recite holy texts to him and continued to meet visitors. On 15 October 1918, he breathed his last. The day coincided with the Hindu calendar date that year for Vijayadashami.His remains were interred at "Buti Wada" in Shirdi, after which it became a place of worship known today as Shree Samadhi Mandir or Shirdi Sai Baba Temple.

14 October - Lala Har Dayal Singh Mathur birth anniversary

Lala Har Dayal Singh Mathur (Punjabi: 14 October 1884 – 4 March 1939) was an Indian nationalist revolutionary and freedom fighter. He was a polymath who turned down a career in the Indian Civil Service. His simple living and intellectual acumen inspired many expatriate Indians living in Canada and the U.S. to fight against British Imperialism during the First World War.

12 October - Columbus Day

 

Columbus Day is the celebration of Christopher Columbus’ discovery of the Americas on October 12, 1492. Christopher Columbus was an Italian-born explorer who discovered the Americas for the Spanish King in 1492. King Ferdinand of Spain sponsored the expedition west in the hopes of sailing to India. In August of 1492, Columbus set off into the Atlantic with three ships, the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria. Two months later he would set foot on the Bahamas and establish settlements on Hispanola Island, now Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Upon his return to Spain, he spoke of gold in the New World and thus the Americas were opened up for European colonization.

In 1937, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared October 12th every year as Columbus Day. In the US, Columbus Day is celebrated by all US states except for Hawaii, South Dakota, and Alaska. Columbus Day occurs annually on the second Monday of October.

Source : https://www.wincalendar.com/in/Columbus-Day